


The Life that is Waiting for Us

by tinypinkmouse



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Ficlet Collection, Injury, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-10
Updated: 2010-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 00:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes all you can do is wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life that is Waiting for Us

**Author's Note:**

> A series of ficlets, the overall title is from a quote by Joseph Cambell: "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." And the titles for each ficlet comes form a quote as well, I'm sure I must have been bored.

**Be Quiet Still and Solitary**   
"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." -Franz Kafka

Hidden behind his visor no one can tell the moment he dims his optics. He does not need his sight for this. Does not want the certainty that his optics will not let him deny.

He places his hands on sensitive door-wings. Runs them gently over wings that are usually held with tenseness or quivering under his touch. Now they lay still against the flat surface. The hands caress along well known seems, touch sensors that never fail to elicit a response. Not a twitch and not a sound. The door-wings lie cool and still.

His hands move over to touch the helm. Slowly his fingers follow the familiar contours of the chevron before moving over to the well known features of the faceplate under his hands. His fingers gently brush down the seem on one cheek, continue downwards and linger over sensitive wiring in the neck.

There is nothing but stillness and the slightly too cool feel of familiar metal under his hands. So his hands wander on. Touches that are not meant for public viewing, but so reverent that there can be no shame. Not now, not here.

His hands still over the chest plate.

Where always before there was a sense of a familiar energy, the spark beneath the chest plate just beneath his fingers. And even in recharge the body beneath his hands always held a sense of movement. Movement held back, not yet realised, but always there. Now there is only this unnatural stillness.

He lays his head on the chest plate. Perhaps hoping for some flicker of sound to carry to his sensitive audio receptors, something to tell him that what his sight has told him and what his touch has confirmed can not be true. Perhaps there simply isn't anything else left to do.

And there. A brief flicker. It is not a sound. Not movement. It is not something his touch sensors can feel, or his audio receptors hear. Something so achingly familiar he cannot be mistaken. A spark. His spark. Prowl's spark.

"Ratchet!" The shout echoes painfully loud and the stillness around him breaks into frenzied movement.

  
**The Silence of Our Friends**   
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -Marthin Luther King Jr

Every time he walks into a room everyone goes quiet. Conversations resume in whispers if at all and every mech in the room even moves more carefully. They try not drop anything, to run or to do much of anything that might make some unnecessary sound.

Arguing stops. Laughter stops.

Gears doesn't complain.

Bluestreak doesn't talk.

Sideswipe doesn't joke.

Even Wheeljack's experiments seem to have gotten quieter when he's around.

They don't seem to know what to say to him and when they have to talk to him they do so softly, quietly, carefully. When he needs them to do something they never protest. They follow any orders he gives quietly and to the letter. In that at least he's better at Prowl's job than Prowl. The Datsun always wished everyone would follow orders better.

They all act like a loud noise might shatter him and any controversy at all would overload his processor.

He thinks they would even make the alarms sound more softly if they could.

Wherever he goes silence seems to follow in his wake. He spreads it like some incurable disease, infecting everyone around him.

When he's in recharge there are only nightmares. Dreams with no sound. It's easier to stay occupied, to see to it that there is always something to do and never quite enough time for recharge.

Carefully Prime tells him that he should take some time off. Quietly Ratchet suggests that he should get some recharge.

He ignores them all, because he knows that Prowl wouldn't like falling behind on his work.

  
**It Isn't Him**   
Strutter: That's not Him.  
Fidgit: That didn't sound like Him, did it?  
Wally: It doesn't even look like Him!  
Strutter: It isn't him!  
-Time Bandits

Once every Earth day he comes here. Only once, just after sunrise. Only once because if he came more often, he surely couldn't make himself leave. But he has to come, even though it means leaving the work he hasn't yet had time to deal with. There always seems to be more work than there's time to do it in. He has to wonder how Prowl always managed it all, but then he always knew Prowl was special. He's Prowl after all.

So he comes here, every day. He comes because he has to make sure. He has to know that Prowl is still here. Every time he looks at the black and white chassis that was Prowl, that Ratchet is still making repairs on, he can feel that unnatural stillness, the cold and quiet. That isn't his Prowl.

It's Prowl's body, processor, battle computer, logic centre and all, but it's not Prowl. There's no spark in there. That is held in stasis elsewhere, waiting for Ratchet to finish his repairs.

If he had ever needed to wonder what it was about Prowl that he loved… Prowl's sense of loyalty, duty or any of the qualities which make him a good commander and a wonderful friend. Things that most mechs simply do not seem to see in him.

If he ever had wondered he wouldn't need to anymore. He loves all those things about Prowl and wouldn't change a single thing. His spark however will always recognise Prowl's spark, no matter the time, the place or the body.

So he comes here, once every morning, to make sure Prowl's spark is still there. And he prays that Ratchet will finish his repairs in time, because he can feel the spark fading. He prays that it's not too late, because while he will love Prowl no matter what, he hopes that when he wakes up he'll still be the Prowl he was before.

  
**The Best Will Come Back**   
"Then give to the world the best you have. And the best will come back to you." -Madeline Bridges

He feels his systems coming online painfully slowly and for some reason he can't understand he's expecting pain. It never comes. There's a sort of dull ache, like the memory of pain, not the screaming agony he braces himself for.

He knows that his systems should be onlining faster. He should not need to wait as they turn on one by one. His memories aren't ordering themselves properly and he can neither see nor hear. Panic flashes through his processors and the comforting coolness of logic doesn't appear.

"...calm. It'll take a while before everything starts working," a voice he should recognise reaches his audio receptors. The sudden sound grates at the sensitive receptors, but the panic lessens slightly with this small part of his connection to the outside regained.

He can hear the whir of servos and the hum of machines and his processors frantically try to make sense of it all, taking in everything they can, but with some of his sensors still offline and his internal systems not quite up to speed, the only thing he manages to do is make warning signals flash where there should be an image of the world outside of him.

"Everything's gonna be alright," another voice says softly. A familiar voice and though he can't quite remember, it calms his frantic processors.

A touch on his arm grounds him further and he realises that yes, he does have a body and only then knows that he had not been sure.

"It's all gonna be alright now, I promise," the voice whispers softly. The touch on his arm moves slightly, up and then down again. It feels soothing. "You've been offline for awhile. And Ratchet says he doesn't want your systems to come online too fast, so you haveta wait a bit. But I promise it's all gonna be alright," the voice continues whispering.

Suddenly his vision flashes and then his optics are online. All he can see is the ceiling and he knows he's lying down. He turns his head towards the voice, still talking, still whisepring comforting words.

Not that he'd know how to be quiet, the fond thought enters his processors and then fades away. Leaving no clues about where it came from.

He sees a black and white mech and his spark pulses once almost painfully.

"Hi," the black and white smiles. His spark flutters wildly.

"I..." he starts to say, but the sound of his own voice makes him stop. "I don't remember," he tells the mech finally.

"Give it time, you will. Trust me." The hand moves to lie over his chest plating, right over his spark chamber. His spark pulses again and feels like it's trying to reach out to touch that hand.

"I do." He wonders at the confidence in the sound that exits his vocalizer.

  
**All Will Be Well**   
"All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well" -Julian of Norwich

As he walks back into the med bay his optics turn toward the table he's spent most of his time at these past orns. Now it lays empty and briefly his tired processors can't quite grasp why. He turns his optics to take in the rest of the room and then they settle on an image that manages to warm his old spark.

The black and white frame that has lain open on that table for him to poke and prod is now sitting on the floor of all things. That alone would normally be unbelievable, Prowl is not a mech anyone expects to sit on the floor.

The door wings are held more relaxed than he has ever seen them and a smile is etched over his faceplates. The reason no doubt, the other black and white whose head lies in his lap.

Prowl's hands caress the black helm, his optics following the movements.

It doesn't take a medic to tell that Jazz is finally deep in recharge. He knows the saboteur has had even less recharge than himself during this time.

He looks at the two black and whites and suddenly feels like an intruder in his own med bay. Prowl's head lifts and their optics meet for a moment.

Jazz stirs and Prowl's optics return to him. Hands run soothingly over the black helm and Jazz stills again. The soft smile never leaves Prowl's faceplates.

There are still tests to run, some small adjustments to be made and in the end he knows that only time can tell if Prowl has recovered completely. But for now he lets himself believe that everything will be alright.

Quietly he backs out. He's far overdue for some recharge himself.


End file.
